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Translational Neuroinformatics Workgroup What is Neuroinformatics: In a nutshell, Neuroinformatics is a transdisciplinary field encompassing neuroscientific knowledge and questions and the applicaton of computational tools and models. The growth of this area in the past few years reflects its crescent contribution to experimental designs, image processing, and theoretical developments in the field of neuroscience, including clinical neuroscience. Another important contribution of neuroinformatics involves neurotechnological developments, such as software and hardware integration tools (for example, Brain-Computer Interfaces, BCI). Our Translational Neuroinformatics Workgroup (TNW), is closely associated with the Translational Cognitive Neuroscience of Affective Disorders Lab (www.translational-cognitive-neuroscience.org/start/), and includes professionals from multiple areas, including neuroscience, mathematics, statistics, clinical neuropsychiatry, computer engineering and software development. Among several projects involving neuroinformatics (fMRI, DTI, VBM, spectroscopy, cortical thickness, applied to cognitive neuroscience, neuroplasticity, neurological and psychiatric disorders), we have been dedicating special efforts to the development of methods, experimental designs and software tools for neuromodulation using real-time functional MRI (rt-fMRI) neurofeedback. A core part of this project is the development of the FRIEND toolbox (Functional Real-time Interactive Endogenous Neuromodulation and Decoding). This was motivated by the observaton that people can be taught to control their own neural activity when they are given feedback about their ongoing neural states. Earlier neurofeedback experiments relied primarily on electroenchephalography (EEG), with subjects aiming at increasing amplitudes in a given frequency range. However, fMRI provides the unique benefits of higher spatial accuracy and importantly, the ability to monitor neural activity in deep brain regions which are virtually inaccessible by EEG methods (see groundwork on fMRI neurofeedback). This is crucial for the ability to perform neuromodulation of emotional and motivational states, a cornerstone for applications in the fields of psychology and neuropsychiatry. In the near future, our rt-fMRI tool will be integrated with quantitative EEG tools, in order to combine the benefits of high spatial accuracy of fMRI and high temporal accuracy of EEG.
The FRIEND toolbox allows healthy control volunteers and patients with neurological and psychiatric conditions to potentially learn to control their own brain activation endogenously. This can be done using signals from selected anatomical regions, as well as from multiple, distributed regions (or voxels), using feature selection followed by multivariate pattern classification methods (e.g., Support Vector Machines, SVM).
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